The Apprentice
by Mistress Of The Macabre
Summary: Four years after the capture of John Kramer and Amanda Young, the Jigsaw murders have begun again. One woman must find it within herself to outrun and outsmart the authorities, her past life, and a man who will not stop until he kills her. With so many loose ends, and more danger than ever before, she must stay in the game as long as possible...


**June 3****rd****, 2001- The games have begun/The Intestinal Crank. **

When Clay Delaney first woke, he thought he was blind. Wherever he was- and he knew that he was certainly _not _at home, because home wasn't like this- it was black. Not just dark; _black. _Sprawled out on the ground, flat on his back, he felt like some sick kind of fucking doll.

He tried to sit up. He couldn't.

Something was holding him back; keeping him fastened to the ground.

In his drug-induced haze, Clay felt something like terror stir in him for the first time. He squeezed his eyes shut, and sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm his thumping heart. _It'll be okay, _he told himself, _this is just someone's fucked-up idea of a joke. _

He tried to sit up again, and all at once there was a sudden, sharp bite of pain, somewhere just near his stomach. "Ah! What the shit!"

If this was someone's idea of a joke, it was a damned stupid one. Clay grimaced, as his stomach began to throb. He let his left hand drift downwards, towards the source of the pain, and, after a few panicked seconds of fumbling, he found it.

He screamed.

There was a hole in his stomach- _someone had poked a hole in his stomach! _

His eyes wheeled wildly, unable to see in the smothering darkness. His mouth hung open in a bloody 'O'. Almost unconsciously, he found the small hole again, and slipped two fingers inside…

…What he felt was slickness. His fingers slipped inside himself, touching soft, fleshy walls…and something else. Something that was coiled up inside him like a rope. He touched it, and then he was screaming again, because he knew that the rope-like thing inside him was his own intestines. They even _felt _like rope, but no rope was ever that hard to get a hold of, and no rope was certainly slick with blood.

His fingers touched upon something else. Something small and hard. Something that felt like a knob of bone.

Screaming hoarsely, Clay jerked his fingers out of the hole. What the fuck had he been _thinking? _He had probably worsened the damage by a tenfold, putting his fingers in there!

He grabbed at his legs. Something, probably steel, was holding him down. He ripped at it with his fingers. No luck. The metal was welded to the ground, and all Clay succeeded in doing was ripping a fingernail off. "Fuck!" There was no edge to the smooth, slick metal.

"_What the fuck is this shit?" _he bellowed, yanking at the metal straps. When that didn't work, he held his bloodied hand up and waved it furiously in front face. Despite everything, he still couldn't see it. _"FUCK!" _

Scared shitless as well as furious, he began to wave his arms all around him, striking out at the smothering black, hoping to hit something, _anything…_anything that could maybe explain what the hell he had gotten himself into.

His bloodied left hand hit something thin and metallic-feeling. With his heart in his throat, he slid his slick hand up and down it, hoping against hope that he could determine what it was. It was beside him.

When he next spoke, his voice was much softer. All the anger had dissipated with his increasing fear. "What the fuck?" His voice was hoarse- just barely above a whisper.

Then a light bulb sputtered into life, and the weak, urine-coloured light revealed all to Clay Delaney.

He was in a room no larger than a toilet cubicle. He was flat on his back, his lower thighs and feet strapped securely to the ground. There were vices, one on either side of him, and directly in line with his arms, well within reach. At the back of the vices, there was a button, small and hard to see. There was something that resembled a cage around his midsection- there were two thin, metal poles on either side of his throbbing abdomen, and a third resting in between them, apparently a crank of some kind. There was a piece of what appeared to be fishing line attached to this third pole, and, to his horror, the other end disappeared into the tender, swollen flesh that was his stomach.

When he saw that, Clay had to literally fight tooth and nail to keep from spewing violently. As he swallowed back the last bit of bile, he nearly screamed, his stomach giving a searing twinge of pain.

It was then that he realised that there were two other things in the room with him as well.

A battered television set.

And a digital clock on top of it, with two single numbers glowing fiercely from it: a six, and a zero. Sixty.

When Clay saw these two objects, the television turned on. Scared out of his wits, Clay watched with wide eyes as the television hovered for a moment on eerie-sounding static, and then let out a weak whimper as an all-too familiar face appeared on the screen:

A puppet. Not just any puppet, either. _The Jigsaw Killer's puppet. _Clay had deemed it 'butt-ugly' when he had seen it on the news that time, but now, seeing it up close and staring directly at him, it was grotesque. Deathly-white, it looked less like a doll but more like a corpse, and the gaping, staring red eyes did nothing to discourage this image. Its lips were red, too red, and looked like they had been painted in blood. Perhaps they had been.

This nightmarish creature stared blankly at Clay for a few more moments, before its mouth creaked open, and it began to speak in a harsh whisper:

"Hello, Clay. I want to play a game. Right now, you're feeling helpless. This helplessness is the same helplessness you have bestowed unto others. But now, it's unto you. I call this justice. Now, you have been in and out of jail for five years for over fifty cases of armed robbery, and one count of murder. Now, you thought that no one else knew about it, but you were severely mistaken. I know, and now, you will pay. In thirty seconds, your intestines will be half-pulled from your body. In sixty seconds, you will be completely gutted. To avoid this fate, all you have to do is destroy the things that have caused people so much pain: your hands. You must insert your hands and push the buttons to deactivate the device. Your bones will be crushed to dust. Will you destroy the things that have taken a life in order to save one, Clay? The choice…is yours."

As the puppet finished speaking, it stared blankly at Clay for a few more moments, and then the television switched off. Clay clenched his fists, his ragged nails sinking into the soft flesh of his palm. His face twisted, clearly showing the sheer terror he felt. His mouth worked furiously, but no words came out.

His horror had rendered him mute.

His nails dug deep enough into his flesh to draw blood, and, somehow breaking the thick scum of saliva that had seemingly glued his lips together, Clay screamed.

However, he was not screaming because of the stinging pain in his palms.

He was screaming because, somewhere beyond his range of vision, ominous machinery was starting up, whirring into deadly practice. Clay screamed again, pummelled the darkness with his fists, to no effect. He could only watch helplessly as the winch on the pole began to ever so slowly creak, and then Clay felt true pain.

The hook in his intestine was suddenly jerked upward. The rope of his intestine resisted the pressure for a moment, and then began to slowly inch upward with the hook. Clay screamed, involuntary tears leaking down his suddenly ruddy cheeks. There were no words to describe the pain. It was stinging, biting- and only in his midsection. There was little blood, just a mere trickle, and the occasional droplets that dripped from his increasingly-lengthening intestine.

"Okay, okay...I can do this!" he whispered, coughing a little; he tasted blood, and spat it out, letting out a tortured moan as his abdomen gave a twitch of pain. If he looked hard enough, he could see hundreds upon hundreds of blood vessels entwined around his intestine, all full of blood- if they burst…

Clay's stomach heaved. He worked his throat rapidly, knowing that if he were to vomit, he would ruin any chance he had of getting out of this trap. Glancing beside him, he saw vices on either side of him, and he knew that he had to let his hands be crushed if he wanted to maybe escape.

"I can do this…" he whispered wetly; his words were wet not because of his sheer terror, but because his mouth was now full of blood. He spat a considerable amount out, only to have his mouth fill immediately with the salty, rustic fluid. He had to hurry. The hook was tearing his body, tearing and gouging his soft flesh, perhaps rupturing major organs…

Grimacing, he moved his shuddering hands to both vices, and placed them inside. The metal was cool. So smooth and cold…

Clay saw the button at the back of either vice, and, his face pulled into a twisted grin of terror, pushed them with the tips of his pale, shaking fingers. He held his breath, knowing that he probably only had twenty seconds or so left.

More machinery began to whir and grind into life.

Clay gritted his teeth and waited for the pain to come.

He didn't have to wait for long.

In just a few seconds, the vices smashed down upon his hands, and he screamed, blood erupting from his mouth in a frenzied fountain, as his hands were utterly obliterated. He wanted to wrench his hands free of the slab of metal that was crushing both of his hands to dust, but he could not do so. Jigsaw wanted him to wait until the job was done. He, Clay, had to play by the rules.

The pressure on his hands intensified, and Clay let out a blood-curdling howl of pain, blood now running freely from both his mouth and his punctured stomach.

His frail finger bones snapped.

Skin tore easily, like a small child might do with a gift.

Veins exploded.

There was no longer anything that resembled hands underneath the weights. They had been obliterated, reduced to nothing more than a pool of blood, scraps of flesh, and small, hard white fragments that had been once living, working, finger bones.

Clay tried to raise one of his mutilated hands, and he let out a wet moan when it didn't move. He tried to move his hand again, and he clearly saw his wrist bones move, the small bones working in perfect synchronization, but his pulverised hands would not cooperate. Coughing up a little more blood, Clay tried one more time, heaving with all his might, not noticing that the crank was still churning, because he was focusing solely on his _hands _now, and when he tried to move them, it took him a moment to realise that while his arms were moving with him, his hands were not.

Clay stared at them dumbly, as the flesh sagged, and fell to the ground with a soft _plop. _

He began to feel light-headed. He supposed that he should feel worried, but he was staring at the stump where his hands used to be, uncomprehending.

The crank was pulled tight suddenly; Clay's body arced upwards, temporarily hoisted up from the sheer force. His intestine was strung up like a dead snake; droplets of blood arched toward the ground, exploding upon impact.

Clay's glazed eyes took in this new sight, and a slight frown crossed his too-pale face. "I don't understand," he whispered, and coughed wetly, "I did what I was supposed to do…"

Two minutes later, he was dead, strapped to the ground in a pool of his own blood, his hands laying dutifully beside him.

**XxX**

Eric Matthews sat Peter Strahm down at a picnic table in a park that was between the town and the beach- a fair way from Mayfield, where Strahm had once resided.

Matthews glanced at the sea, its sparkling blue tranquillity, the white sand that stood out especially at night, and then at the small, luxurious villa that was bought and owned by Peter Strahm, former FBI agent. He sighed. It had been quite some time since he had last spoken to Strahm, but that did not mean that the man was no less admirable. He had been one of the few people to be abducted by the Jigsaw Killer and live through the experience. "I should have spoken to you about this earlier. You don't want to talk about it here."

Strahm looked at Matthews evenly. "I don't want to talk about it anywhere, Matthews. I hear you've been promoted."

Matthews scowled. Admirable man or not, he knew when someone was trying to avoid the subject. Strahm was doing that now. "Yes," he said. "Detective Lieutenant now. Strahm-"

Strahm swore. Matthews noted that while the other man still looked the same, he had curious puckers on the right side of his face- the end result of running afoul of hot oil. "You've always been a persistent cop, Matthews- I'll give you that. You've obviously got to talk about it, so let's not bullshit each other and cut right to the chase. If you have photographs, keep them in the briefcase. Lindsey feels even more strongly about this than I do."

Matthews sighed. Nothing had changed Strahm's 'tough-guy' attitude; not even burning oil right in the face. But fuck it; he had a job to do, and as the new Detective Lieutenant of Mayfield, he had to do it. "How much do you know?"

"Only what's in the papers. They're calling him a second Jigsaw. He abducts and murders his victims in a similar fashion to John Kramer."

Matthews nodded. "Yeah. But he also has access to some pretty impressive equipment. He warps his voice so that he _sounds _like John Kramer. He _wants _the population to be scared shitless."

Strahm slammed a hand down on the table. "What's with this other one, then? Are they a stooge as well?"

Matthews smirked. "For someone who apparently has given up on police work, you seem so damn interested."

Strahm scowled. "Don't shit me, Matthews," he said. "Just get to the point."

Matthews sighed. "All right. The first time it happened, we thought it might have just been a fluke- you know people these days. But, after the second murder, done in exactly the same way-"

"You thought there might be a second apprentice."

"Yeah. The first murder- it might have been revenge, or a relative. But the second murder confirmed the suspicion of another Jigsaw apprentice. There was absolutely nothing to connect the first murder with the second- nothing, that is, except for the fact that both were recently paroled criminals."

Strahm rubbed his face gently. He did it out of habit, still not completely accustomed to the fact that the puckers were part of his face now. "Or possibly three. Like you've stated before, the murders were random- some died in hours of each other."

Matthews blinked. "You heard that?"

"Not much is kept out of the papers these days," Strahm said grimly.

Matthews looked at Strahm, his expression calculating. "That's why we need you back, Strahm," he finally said. "You're good at this."

"I've retired, Matthews. I've done my bit."

"But you're _good _at this," Matthews said, sounding, for the first time, panicky. "You are, Strahm. You survived a Jigsaw trap."

Strahm laughed darkly. "How? By following the fucking rules. Even then, it was a close call."

"But you did it."

"I was lucky."

"Bullshit," Matthews growled. "You don't think the same way other people do. That's why you were such a damned good FBI agent."

"I think there's a lot of bullshit spread about the way I think."

"You made connections that no one else could possibly have made," Matthews said, sounding tired. Arguing with Strahm was like arguing with himself- both men were notoriously stubborn. Still, it was because of this stubbornness that Matthews had wanted to see Strahm in the first place.

"You have the people you need, Eric. I don't think I'd be any help. Lindsey and I moved down here to get away from that."

Matthews sighed. "I know. You got hurt last time. But chasing Jigsaw was your passion, Strahm, and I hate to say it, but the secluded life does not suit you." He slipped a hand inside the briefcase he had brought along, and pulled out two photographs. The first was of a middle-aged woman, who lay splayed on the ground, her throat cut, the rest of her body entwined with what appeared to be razor wire. The other was of a man Strahm had seen in the papers lately: Clay Delaney. His intestine had been ripped out of his stomach, and his hands had been crushed.

"All dead," Matthews said. _"Dead, _Strahm."

Strahm looked at the photographs. He looked for a very long time.

After a few minutes, he looked out toward his home, and saw his wife Lindsey in the front garden, her dark hair whipping about in the breeze. Despite the many injuries she had sustained during Strahm's trials, he still thought she was beautiful.

Matthews waited patiently, fighting hard to keep the satisfaction from his face. He thought he had Strahm. Eventually, though, he felt that he had to break the silence. "You have a nice life here, Strahm. Lindsey and the house and all. When did you move here?"

Strahm's voice was quiet. "A year and a half, maybe two years ago. Lindsey loves the ocean."

"It's great that you two got married."

Strahm was silent, obviously thinking hard.

"Strahm, you have a nose for this sort of thing. We have a better chance of catching these Jigsaw stooges with you around, Peter. I don't say that lightly, either."

Strahm sighed. "I know you don't. But I'll need to give it some more thought. Lindsey will need to know, too."

Matthews stood up. He had said everything he could possibly say. And Strahm hadn't flat-out turned him down. There was still a possibility that he might join. "All right. I'll give you time to think about it, Peter. But keep this in mind; the longer you wait, the more people that die."

He left shortly thereafter, and perhaps it should have ended there, but for a long time afterwards, Strahm's mind was working overtime. It was clear.

He had a choice to make.

Again.

**A/N: Well, I'm back. Now, this was intended as a sequel to the Saw fanfiction 'Legacy', and if you've read that, then you'll have a good idea of who the characters are and what not, but if you haven't, then its not necessary- you can read this as a standalone fanfiction. Whether you read the prequel first or not, I hope to chill you and thrill you to the best of my ability. Thanks for reading. **


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